Jennifer Graham – Page 27

Once Upon a Wardrobe, by Patti Callahan

Once Upon a Wardrobe, by Patti Callahan (Harper Muse, 320 pages)

His good friend J.R.R. Tolkien might be more popular in Hollywood, but Clive Staples Lewis — you know him as “C.S.” — continues to sell books nearly 60 years after his death.

The Oxford scholar and Christian apologist not only wrote books but inspired them. The Lewis-related catalog includes more than a dozen biographies, memoirs by people who knew him (among them A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken) and collections of Lewis quotes.

And now Southern writer Patti Callahan is capitalizing on Lewis’s enduring popularity by writing novels in the Lewisverse. They’re not quite historical novels, not quite fan fiction, but a blending of two disparate genres.

Callahan’s first was Becoming Mrs. Lewis, the 2018 account of the relationship between Lewis and his wife, New Yorker Joy Davidman. Written in first person, the book is Callahan’s imagining of how the relationship transpired, but apparently quite factual. Davidman’s son called it “extraordinarily accurate” and said the novel was more truthful than many nonfiction accounts about his mother.

Callahan’s latest, Once Upon a Wardrobe, again takes first person, this time the voice of a 17-year-old college student, Megs Devonshire, who befriends Lewis and his older brother, Warnie, in order to answer a question for her little brother.

Megs’ brother, George, is 8 and not expected to live until 9 because of a heart condition. He spends most of his time in bed and has become enthralled with a recently published children’s book, Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. A deep thinker for his age, George is obsessed with learning where the idea for Narnia arose, if the place is real. Since Megs takes classes near Magdalen College, where Lewis teaches, he begs her to find out.

Megs agrees; she adores her brother and wants to provide whatever happiness she can in his limited life. “I loved Dad with a fierce love, but I loved George more,” she says. “Maybe when we know we will lose someone, we love fiercer and wilder. Of course there will always be loss, but with George the end lingered in every room, in every breath, in every holiday.”

Although she often sees Lewis walking around the Oxford campus, she’s too shy to approach him directly and instead follows him home one night and takes to hanging out in the shrubbery, trying to summon the nerve to knock on the door. It’s there that the kindly Warnie discovers her one day, and, this being before stalking was a thing, he invites her inside for tea.

From there, a relationship evolves between the Lewis brothers and Megs, who is a math whiz studying physics and was initially dismissive of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, until she read it with her brother and became equally entranced by the story. C.S. Lewis, who went by Jack, is reluctant to answer Megs’ question outright, and instead offers her a series of stories about his life, told over a number of visits, which she goes home and relays to her brother.

In this way, Once Upon a Wardrobe is yet another Lewis biography, told in a fresh way, and like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, it’s told in deceptively simple language. The narrator, after all, is a 17-year-old girl, although she delves into mature themes, such as illness and death. She’s a bit heavy-handed with the book’s theme, which is that life, and our experience of it, is the sum of the stories we tell ourselves, or that others tell us.

Even 8-year-old George grasps that, telling his sister, “I know you think the whole world is held together by some math formula. But I’ve thought about this a lot, and I think the world is held together by stories, not all those equations you stare at.”

The book at times feels somewhat formulaic (all protagonists must be earnest outsiders who don’t quite fit in; children are dispensers of wisdom) but Callahan has a deft touch and is beautifully descriptive. She goes to the source — Lewis’s memoirs and letters — to try to craft an answer to George’s question. When it comes, it might not be what you think. In fact, Lewis’s first imagining of a faun carrying an umbrella more resembles Stephenie Myers’ dream of a human and a vampire in a field than a theologian trying to create an allegory that represents Christianity. And Narnia, the name, didn’t come from a dream, but from a map: It’s derived from the name of a town in Italy.

Ultimately, this is a book for the diehard Narnia fan; people with little interest in those stories would have zero interest in this novel. But the prolific Callahan has 15 other novels worth checking out, including one published earlier this year. Surviving Savannah is historical fiction about an 1838 shipwreck that was called “The Titanic of the South.” B

Book Notes

The best-selling Hollywood memoir this month looks to be Will, a memoir by actor Will Smith, co-written with Mark Manson (Penguin, 432 pages), and this probably would have been true even before Oprah Winfrey deemed it the best memoir she’s ever read.

The Manson-Smith collaboration is an interesting one. Usually celebrity authors get writing help from relative unknowns. Manson is an author who may not be a household name but has serious publishing cred by virtue of his own books, 2016’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*** (Harper, 224 pages) and its followup Everything is F***ed, a Book about Hope (Harper, 288 pages).

We can safely assume there will be expletives in Will, but from the opening, it looks like a powerful, poignant read with no gratuitous cursing. An excerpt: “What you have come to understand as ‘Will Smith,’ the alien-annihilating MC, the bigger-than-life movie star, is largely a construction — a carefully crafted and honed character — designed to protect myself. To hide myself from the world. To hide the coward.”

Also in the entertainment category comes two “oral histories” of popular shows: The Office and The Sopranos. Setting aside how it can be an oral history on a printed page, these books promise to tell the most ardent fans stuff they don’t already know.

Welcome to Dunder Mifflin: The Ultimate Oral History of The Office (Custom House, 464 pages) is written by Brian Baumgartner, who played Kevin on the show, with Ben Silverman and Greg Daniels, the producer and original showrunner, respectively.

The other, also published this month, is Woke Up This Morning, the Definitive Oral History of The Sopranos (William Morrow, 528 pages). It’s by Michael Imperioli, who played Christopher in the HBO series, and Steve Schirripa, who played Bobby Baccalieri.

For the record, if it doesn’t explain the series’ infamous ending, they need to stop calling the book “definitive.”

Book Events

Author events

• BRENE BROWN Author presents Atlas of the Heart. Virtual event hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord. Thurs., Dec. 2, 8 p.m. Via Zoom. Tickets cost $30. Ticket sales end Dec. 2, at noon. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.

• ERNESTO BURDEN Author presents Slate. The Bookery (844 Elm St., Manchester). Thurs., Dec. 2, 5:30 p.m. Visit bookerymht.com or call 836-6600.

• JACK DALTON Kid conservationist presents his book, Kawan the Orangutan: Lost in the Rainforest. Toadstool Bookshop, 375 Amherst St., Nashua. Sat., Dec. 4, noon. Visit toadbooks.com.

• DAMIEN KANE RIDGEN Author presents Bell’s Codex and My Magnum Opus. Toadstool Bookshop, 375 Amherst St., Nashua. Sun., Dec. 5, noon. Visit toadbooks.com.

• MICHAEL J. FOX Author presents No Time Like the Future. Virtual event hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord. Tues., Dec. 7, 7 p.m. Via Zoom. Registration required. Tickets cost $17.99, and include a copy of the book. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.

• JEN SINCERO Author presents Badass Habits. Virtual event hosted by The Music Hall in Portsmouth as part of its “Innovation and Leadership” series. Tues., Dec. 7, 7:30 p.m. Includes author presentation, coaching session and audience Q&A. Tickets cost $22. Visit themusichall.org or call 436-2400.

• KATHRYN HULICKAuthor presents Welcome to the Future. Sat., Dec. 11, 2 p.m. Toadstool Bookshop, 12 Depot Square, Peterborough. Visit toadbooks.com.

Poetry

• NH POET LAUREATE ALEXANDRIA PEARY Poet presents a new collection of poetry, Battle of Silicon Valley at Dawn. Virtual event hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord. Tues., Dec. 14, 7 p.m. Via Zoom. Registration required. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.

• DOWN CELLAR POETRY SALON Poetry event series presented by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. Monthly. First Sunday. Visit poetrysocietynh.wordpress.com.

Book Clubs

• BOOKERY Online. Monthly. Third Thursday, 6 p.m. Bookstore based in Manchester. Visit bookerymht.com/online-book-club or call 836-6600.

• GIBSON’S BOOKSTORE Online, via Zoom. Monthly. First Monday, 5:30 p.m. Bookstore based in Concord. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com/gibsons-book-club-2020-2021 or call 224-0562.

• TO SHARE BREWING CO. 720 Union St., Manchester. Monthly. Second Thursday, 6 p.m. RSVP required. Visit tosharebrewing.com or call 836-6947.

• GOFFSTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY 2 High St., Goffstown. Monthly. Third Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. Call 497-2102, email [email protected] or visit goffstownlibrary.com

• BELKNAP MILL Online. Monthly. Last Wednesday, 6 p.m. Based in Laconia. Email [email protected].

• NASHUA PUBLIC LIBRARY Online. Monthly. Second Friday, 3 p.m. Call 589-4611, email [email protected] or visit nashualibrary.org.

Pastoral Song, by James Rebanks

Pastoral Song, by James Rebanks (Custom House, 294 pages)

Occasionally a book does so well across the Atlantic that publishers in the U.S. pick it up, hoping that American readers will warm to the author as well despite the peculiarities of some English words. This worked out splendidly for J.K. Rowling.

There are similar hopes for Pastoral Song, which the U.K.’s Sunday Times pronounced “nature book of the year” when it was first published as English Pastoral. Subtitled “A Farmer’s Journey,” the book is a meditation on the plight of small farmers who struggle to keep family farms going even as the despised “factory farm” gobbles a larger share of our food dollars each year.

James Rebanks, the author, is a thinking-man’s farmer, although he makes it clear that no true farmer has time to sit and think. He inherited his land from his father but got his love of farming from his grandfather, who was the bigger influence in his life. Of his father he writes, “I would try to help him and would inevitably do something wrong and be shouted at.”

The grandfather was gentler in his approach, not only to his grandson but to farming.

“He would simply gaze at his cows or sheep for what seemed like ages, leaning over a gate. As a result he knew them all as individuals. He could spot when they behaved differently because something was wrong, when they were coming into season or were about to give birth. He thought only fools rushed around,” Rebanks wrote.

This is all well and good for the practice of farming, but unfortunately for the reader, Rebanks brings his grandfather’s style to this book. In sum, it is Rebanks leaning over a gate, for what seems like ages, musing leisurely about the challenges of farming. It’s watching the grass grow, with very little happening in long stretches, but for the occasional offing of varmints. (And I wish I had not learned how Rebanks’ father rid his fields of rabbits, but it’s too late for that now.)

To be fair, Rebanks memorably conveys the harshness of a lifestyle that has been romanticized. “My parents were half-broke. I could see it in the second-hand tractors, rusting barn roofs, and old machinery that was always breaking down and never got replaced. But I could taste it too, in the endless boiled stew and mince that was served up.”

The family earned a tenuous living that would be foreign to workers with biweekly direct deposit. Their pay varied with the weather, and with rising interest rates and diving market prices, and the occasional murder of crows that could swoop in and destroy a field of barley. And farming requires an extraordinary amount of emotional toughness, what with all the horrible ways in which farm animals can die, even outside of slaughter. (When’s the last time you watched a rat try to drag away a chicken?)

“The logic chain is simple: we have to farm to eat, and we have to kill (or displace life, which amounts to the same thing) to farm. Being human is a rough business,” Rebanks writes. But, he says, there is a difference “between the toughness all farming required and the industrial ‘total war’ on nature that had been unleashed in my lifetime.”

The past 40 years, Rebanks says, has upended thousands of years of farming practices that came before it, and when his father died, leaving him the land, he was faced with the same dilemma confronting his father and grandfather — how to earn enough from the land “to pay our bills, service our debts, and make some money for us to live on” — in circumstances vastly different from theirs.

Then, after all this musing in his motherland, Rebanks up and comes to America to visit friends. And traveling through Iowa and Kentucky, eying the Confederate flags and Trump signs, he figures out who to blame: those grungy Americans!

This may have played well in the U.K., but it was a startling turn of events in an otherwise mournful elegy for the farmer, to have him pick up a bat and start swinging it wildly in the Iowa cornfields. He said Kentucky felt like a “landscape littered with ghosts and relics” and called Iowa “dark, flat and bleak.”

“Everything old was rotting. Barns leaned away from the wind, roofs half torn off.” The cause of this dystopian Midwest: “America had chosen industrial farming and abandoned its small family farms,” as if there was a lever we pulled in our last election. In fact, we vote for factory farms every time we visit a supermarket, he says. “The people in those shops seemed not to know, or care much, about how unsustainable their food production is. The share of the average American citizen’s income spent on food has declined from about 22% in 1950 to about 6.4% today … The money that people think they are spending on food from farms almost all goes to those who process the food, and to the wholesalers and retailers.”

Fair enough. But read the room. An English farmer coming over here to lecture Americans about their grocery shopping, diss our fruited plains? It feels a little rude.

And Rebanks concedes that “the overwhelming majority” of farms are not factory farms. “About 80 percent of people on earth are still fed by these small farmers,” he writes. That said, the work of a small farm is a “tough old game and doesn’t fit with any economic principle of minimizing work and maximizing productivity.” So what to do? Besides supporting your local farmers, “thinking longer term and with more humility,” Rebanks suggests planting trees. He plans to plant a tree every day for the rest of his life.

It’s clear to see why English Pastoral was a hit in the U.K., with its call for more sustainably produced food there “in order to avoid importing more from sterile, ruined landscapes like those of the American Midwest, or from land being cleared of pristine ecosystems in places like Indonesia and the Amazon.”

It’s less clear why this occasionally plodding, occasionally melodic memoir would do well here. As our grandmothers would say, don’t bite the hands that feed you. C

Book Events

Author events

• HILARY CROWLEY Author presents The Power of Energy Medicine. Virtual event hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord. Thurs., Nov. 18, 7 p.m. Via Zoom. Registration required. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.

• WENDY GORTON Author presents 50 Hikes with Kids: New England. Virtual event hosted by Toadstool Bookshops of Peterborough, Nashua and Keene. Sun., Nov. 21, 4 p.m. Via Zoom. Visit toadbooks.com.

• TANJA HESTER Author presents Wallet Activism: How to Use Every Dollar You Spend, Earn, and Save as a Force for Change. Virtual event hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord. Mon., Nov. 22, 7 p.m. Via Zoom. Registration required. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.

• JACK DALTON Kid conservationist presents his book, Kawan the Orangutan: Lost in the Rainforest. Toadstool Bookshop, 375 Amherst St., Nashua. Sat., Dec. 4, noon. Visit toadbooks.com.

• DAMIEN KANE RIDGEN Author presents Bell’s Codex and My Magnum Opus. Toadstool Bookshop, 375 Amherst St., Nashua. Sun., Dec. 5, noon. Visit toadbooks.com.

• KATHRYN HULICKAuthor presents Welcome to the Future. Sat., Dec. 11, 2 p.m. Toadstool Bookshop, 12 Depot Square, Peterborough. Visit toadbooks.com.

Poetry

• DOWN CELLAR POETRY SALON Poetry event series presented by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. Monthly. First Sunday. Visit poetrysocietynh.wordpress.com.

Book Clubs

• BOOKERY Online. Monthly. Third Thursday, 6 p.m. Bookstore based in Manchester. Visit bookerymht.com/online-book-club or call 836-6600.

• GIBSON’S BOOKSTORE Online, via Zoom. Monthly. First Monday, 5:30 p.m. Bookstore based in Concord. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com/gibsons-book-club-2020-2021 or call 224-0562.

• TO SHARE BREWING CO. 720 Union St., Manchester. Monthly. Second Thursday, 6 p.m. RSVP required. Visit tosharebrewing.com or call 836-6947.

• GOFFSTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY 2 High St., Goffstown. Monthly. Third Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. Call 497-2102, email [email protected] or visit goffstownlibrary.com

• BELKNAP MILL Online. Monthly. Last Wednesday, 6 p.m. Based in Laconia. Email [email protected].

• NASHUA PUBLIC LIBRARY Online. Monthly. Second Friday, 3 p.m. Call 589-4611, email [email protected] or visit nashualibrary.org.

Language

• FRENCH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE CLASSES Offered remotely by the Franco-American Centre. Six-week session with classes held Thursdays from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. $225. Visit facnh.com/education or call 623-1093.

Truffle Hound, by Rowan Jacobsen

Truffle Hound, by Rowan Jacobsen (Bloomsbury, 283 pages)

You may think, because you’ve never eaten a truffle nor been interested in doing so, that you would have no interest in reading about this delicacy of the 1 percent, who pay upwards of $200 an ounce for bulbous underground fungi.

But you would be wrong.

In the hands of celebrated food writer Rowan Jacobsen, Truffle Hound is a joyful romp through a very strange world, no less interesting for those who care nothing about truffles, or who only care about the chocolate kind. In fact, the book may be even more fascinating to readers who come to it with only a vague knowledge of truffles and why people love them so much.

Jacobsen, who lives in Vermont, was once that person, despite being part of an enviable club: writers who write primarily about food. (His previous books have included deep dives into oysters and apples.) He had consumed truffle fries, truffle salt and other truffle dishes with no particular interest, but one day, at a meeting in Italy, he encountered a small fat truffle, a “bulbous pearl” under glass, that made his world explode.

“I have smelled lots of yumminess before, but this was different,” he writes. “… It was hardly a food scent at all. It was more like catching a glimpse of a satyr prancing across the dining room floor while playing its flute and flashing its hindquarters at you. You think, What the hell was that?”

Jacobsen returned to his table but couldn’t stop thinking about what he had just experienced. “I kept asking my dining companions if they wanted to go smell the truffle,” he writes. Mind you, this reaction arose from the most humble of organisms: a fungus with very little taste and a lumpy shape that is considered delicious by wild pigs. And yet it has inspired kings, philosophers and even Oprah Winfrey, who reportedly carries her own stash of white truffles with her when she travels.

Like William Butler Yeats, who wrote that “Love has pitched his mansion in the place of excrement,” Jacobsen considers the idea that truffle mania is Mother Nature’s joke: “I began to wonder if [truffles] were more like little Trojan horses, wheeled into the finest dining rooms in the world, only to discharge a scent that mocked civilization and its trappings.”

But he quickly throws that thought aside to travel the world in search of the finest truffles and the people and dogs who find them. His quest takes him to forests in Italy, and to an oddly productive truffle farm in North Carolina. Along the way he encounters a fascinating trove of characters, such as the “hotshot in food media circles” (whom, annoyingly, he grants anonymity) who once worked as a truffle dealer in New York City. She’d go to the airport to pick up a box of about 30 pounds of truffles that had been shipped overnight from Europe (the intoxicating scent fades rapidly) and then try to sell them to the city’s most famous chefs. One day, between calls, she bought a warm bagel and took a few truffle shards out of her cooler and grated them on it. “That may have been the best thing I ever ate,” she told Jacobsen.

In anecdotes like this we learn the important stuff about truffles (they require their own specialty utensil, the truffle shaver) and that the truffle oil you see in grocery stores and restaurants most likely contains no actual truffles but is olive oil infused with a truffle-like scent. Also, be careful if you are vacationing in Italy and are offered the opportunity to go on a truffle hunt: Chances are the experience is about as authentic as the “Pirates of the Caribbean” ride at Disney. Cheap truffles are often planted so that customers can get the thrill of seeing a truffle dog “find” one of these homely edible jewels.

About the only question that Jacobsen doesn’t answer about truffles is whether you can legally bring them into the U.S. He confesses that, having spent upwards of 300 euros for three small white truffles (a transaction conducted surreptitiously in a hotel lobby, like a drug deal), he dared not declare them to the customs agent. “Raw fruit, vegetables, and meat are definitely banned, as is soil, but fungi are theoretically fine,” but still, he stuffed his truffle in a sock stuffed in a boot, which seems the sort of thing that can get you detained.

Like the author and naturalist Diane Ackerman, Jacobsen brings the eye of a scientist and the voice of a poet to his work, which is the main reason that this book is so engrossing. Could it have been 50 pages shorter and still as interesting? Absolutely, and it doesn’t leave the reader wanting more; there is really only so much truffle information that the mind can hold.

But for the truly insatiable, there’s an index of resources (websites where you can buy truffles, find authentic truffle hunts and international truffle fairs, and even where you can buy your very own trained truffle dog). There are also a few truffle recipes and a really nice collection of color photographs so you can see what Jacobsen is writing about.

The only thing that’s missing is a scratch-and-sniff page, and a warning that you, too, might become a truffle hound after accompanying the author on this pleasurable hunt. A

Book Notes

New Hampshire runner Ben True has been in the news a lot lately because of his debut in the New York City Marathon Nov. 7. So why mention this in a book column?

It’s because True and his wife, Sarah, a professional triathlete, named their first child after a character in a novel.

As Runner’s World magazine reported, the Hanover couple named their son, born in July, Haakon (pronounced HAWK-en). The name is a derivative of Hakan, the name of the protagonist in a novel by Hernan Diaz, In the Distance (Coffee House Press, 240 pages).

Independent of its plot, the book has a fascinating origin story. It was the author’s first book, and he broke all the rules by submitting it to a small publishing house without first obtaining an agent. But the novel got a glowing review from The New York Times and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

With that sort of reception, it’s no surprise that Diaz has already sold a second novel, Trust, which won’t be released until May but is already available for pre-order on Amazon. This time he snared a big publisher: Riverhead. If the Trues have another child and follow their Diaz-naming tradition, it looks like their next choices will be more common: the main characters are Benjamin and Helen.

Meanwhile there’s a new book out that examines a sport of special interest in New Hampshire: skiing. Powder Days by Heather Hansman (Hanover Square Press, 272 pages) examines “ski bums, ski towns and the future of chasing snow.” A review in Publishers Weekly calls it “as exhilarating as the act of skiing itself.”

Book Events

Author events

• KEN FOLLETT Author presents Never. Virtual event with author discussion and audience Q&A, hosted by The Music Hall in Portsmouth. Sun., Nov. 14, 1 p.m. Tickets cost $36 and include a book for in-person pickup at The Music Hall. Visit themusichall.org or call 436-2400.

• JACK DALTON Kid conservationist presents his book, Kawan the Orangutan: Lost in the Rainforest. Toadstool Bookshop, 375 Amherst St., Nashua. Sat., Dec. 4, noon. Visit toadbooks.com.

• DAMIEN KANE RIDGEN Author presents Bell’s Codex and My Magnum Opus. Toadstool Bookshop, 375 Amherst St., Nashua. Sun., Dec. 5, noon. Visit toadbooks.com.

• KATHRYN HULICKAuthor presents Welcome to the Future. Sat., Dec. 11, 2 p.m. Toadstool Bookshop, 12 Depot Square, Peterborough. Visit toadbooks.com.

Poetry

• DOWN CELLAR POETRY SALON Poetry event series presented by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. Monthly. First Sunday. Visit poetrysocietynh.wordpress.com.

Book Clubs

• BOOKERY Online. Monthly. Third Thursday, 6 p.m. Bookstore based in Manchester. Visit bookerymht.com/online-book-club or call 836-6600.

• GIBSON’S BOOKSTORE Online, via Zoom. Monthly. First Monday, 5:30 p.m. Bookstore based in Concord. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com/gibsons-book-club-2020-2021 or call 224-0562.

• TO SHARE BREWING CO. 720 Union St., Manchester. Monthly. Second Thursday, 6 p.m. RSVP required. Visit tosharebrewing.com or call 836-6947.

• GOFFSTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY 2 High St., Goffstown. Monthly. Third Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. Call 497-2102, email [email protected] or visit goffstownlibrary.com

• BELKNAP MILL Online. Monthly. Last Wednesday, 6 p.m. Based in Laconia. Email [email protected].

• NASHUA PUBLIC LIBRARY Online. Monthly. Second Friday, 3 p.m. Call 589-4611, email [email protected] or visit nashualibrary.org.

Language

Bewilderment, by Richard Powers

Bewilderment, by Richard Powers (W.W. Norton, 278 pages)

For some people, the title of Richard Powers’ new novel, Bewilderment, might seem a nod to his last.

Although The Overstory won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, the 612-page book, published in 2018, had decidedly mixed reviews from the general public. Many readers found it confusing, overwrought, pretentious, unwieldy and preachy.

There are no such problems with Bewilderment, which is a taut and engrossing read from its opening pages to its unsettling ending. It is Powers’ 13th novel and should delight his longtime fans and recruit new ones. There is a raft of intelligent design bobbing in this fast-moving river of a book that centers on two characters: a widowed astrobiologist and his neurologically atypical son who has been diagnosed with Asperger’s, ADHD and obsessive-compulsive behavior. In all of modern literature, you will not find a more sympathetic account of what it’s like to be a single parent raising a child who cannot regulate his behavior. Nor will you find a more thoughtful, yet accessible, musing on the mysteries of the universe.

The novel begins with a father-son camping trip that Theo Byrne arranges as an extended time-out for his son, Robin, who is on the verge of being expelled from third grade because of his out-of-control behavior. Robin, who goes by Robbie, is 9 and has the usual challenges of children that age; other children bully him, for example, because of his name, which was given to him because it was his mother’s favorite bird.

Alyssa Byrne has been dead for two years, but her spirit is very much with her son and husband, who recite her favorite prayer every night: May every sentient being be free from unnecessary suffering. Alyssa was what is commonly known as an animal-rights activist, but without the red spray paint. She was a sharply intelligent, untiring force of nature who used natural winsomeness to alleviate the suffering of animals and to draw attention to mass extinctions under way. In the words of her husband, “She ionized any room, even a roomful of politicians.”

Alyssa’s sudden death (the details of which are slowly revealed) was catastrophic for the family, beyond usual ways. It left Theo an island with no support in his insistence that Robbie not be subjected to psychoactive drugs while the child’s mind was still developing. And it left Robbie, already prone to fits of rage and other antisocial behavior, obsessed with his mother and her causes. At one point, he decides to paint a picture of every endangered animal and sell the paintings to give to one of Alyssa’s favorite charities.

All this alone is fodder for a very good novel, especially given the sensitivity and insight that Powers brings to the challenges of parenting children with autism-spectrum disorders, especially for those doing so alone.

But Powers brings another layer to the story through Theo’s choice of career. A researcher who uses data and imagination to envision forms of life that could populate planets that have yet to be found, Theo shares these potential worlds with his son, who possesses extraordinary wisdom and empathy. Their conversations about the Fermi paradox (the fact that there is no evidence of extraterrestrial life despite the overwhelming odds that it exists) and other scientific concepts lend an intelligence to this novel that inferior literature lacks, and Theo’s descriptions of theoretical planets at times mirror what’s going on in the book. It’s a lovely dance, expertly choreographed by a master.

Robbie’s escalating problems lead Theo to seek out an experimental therapy called Decoded Neurofeedback, which Theo and Alyssa had participated in years ago. Using artificial intelligence, a subject’s brain is mapped, and then taught to steer toward another subject’s emotions. Because Alyssa’s data was available, it is eventually incorporated into Robbie’s treatment, and unforeseen consequences ensue.

This puts Theo, a science-fiction fan since childhood, deeper into an already mind-boggling dilemma — whether to continue with therapy that is apparently helping his son, even when unfolding events threaten to publicly expose Robbie’s participation in a controversial treatment.

As in The Overstory, Powers has points to make, about nature, humans’ oversized footprint on the planet, and politics. His occasional asides into the actions of a fictional president (clearly Donald Trump, or an imitator, though never directly identified as such) — such as a directive that all Americans carry proof of citizenship at all times — seems unnecessary, although there is an endearing fictional Greta Thunberg with whom Robbie falls in love and who is a perfect fit with this story. And when the reason for the title is finally revealed in the waning pages of the novel, it’s a political observation, but pitch-perfect no matter what ideology the reader embraces.

A Hollywood happy ending would betray the complexity of this deeply serious and heart-rending novel, so don’t look for that. But this should be a contender among the best novels of 2021.

Book Notes

If your life has been a little colder, a little drearier these days, maybe it’s because it’s November. Or maybe it’s because it’s been almost five years since the last BBC episode of Sherlock aired, and Benedict Cumberbatch is still being cagey about whether he will make another season.

No matter. There’s usually something new in the Holmes universe, and this month comes Miss Moriarty, I Presume? (Berkley, 368 pages) by Sherry Thomas, writer of something called “The Lady Sherlock Series.” The major characters are Charlotte Holmes and Mrs. Watson, and previous titles in the series include A Study in Scarlet Women and A Conspiracy in Belgravia. It’s anybody’s guess what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would think of this, but the books have made the New York Times bestseller list.

Doyle died in 1930, but his inspired character lives in the genre of pastiche, literature written in the style, and with many of the same characters, as a famous work. Call it a more formal and tasteful style of fan fiction, one that satisfies the appetite for more and more stories of a beloved character.

British writer James Lovegrove has done this successfully with the Sherlock Holmes franchise, and he released a new novel in October: Sherlock Holmes and the Three Winter Terrors (Titan Books, 416 pages). That’s seasonal enough, but he also published Sherlock Holmes and the Christmas Demon two years ago (Titan, 384 pages). It seems that Halloween and Christmas are morphing into one big festival, probably starting with The Nightmare Before Christmas.

There are nine other Lovegrove/Sherlock books, and he’s also written a handful of short stories, published in anthologies, all listed on his website. That should be enough to keep you entertained until a fifth season of Sherlock comes out.

If not, there’s a Benedict Cumberbatch adult coloring book available on Amazon.

Book Events

Author events

• MITCH ALBOM Author presents The Stranger in the Lifeboat. Virtual event hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord. Fri., Nov. 5, 7:30 p.m. Via Zoom. Registration required. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.

Poetry

• COVID SPRING II BOOK LAUNCHVirtual book launch celebrating COVID Spring II: More Granite State Pandemic Poems, an anthology of poetry by 51 New Hampshire residents about the pandemic experience in New Hampshire, now available through independent Concord-based publisher Hobblebush Books. Includes an introduction by Mary Russell, Director of the New Hampshire Center for the Book at the New Hampshire State Library. Sun., Nov. 7, 7 p.m. Virtual, via Zoom. Registration required. Visit hobblebush.com or call 715-9615.

• DOWN CELLAR POETRY SALON Poetry event series presented by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. Monthly. First Sunday. Visit poetrysocietynh.wordpress.com.

Book Clubs

• BOOKERY Online. Monthly. Third Thursday, 6 p.m. Bookstore based in Manchester. Visit bookerymht.com/online-book-club or call 836-6600.

• GIBSON’S BOOKSTORE Online, via Zoom. Monthly. First Monday, 5:30 p.m. Bookstore based in Concord. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com/gibsons-book-club-2020-2021 or call 224-0562.

• TO SHARE BREWING CO. 720 Union St., Manchester. Monthly. Second Thursday, 6 p.m. RSVP required. Visit tosharebrewing.com or call 836-6947.

• GOFFSTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY 2 High St., Goffstown. Monthly. Third Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. Call 497-2102, email [email protected] or visit goffstownlibrary.com

• BELKNAP MILL Online. Monthly. Last Wednesday, 6 p.m. Based in Laconia. Email [email protected].

• NASHUA PUBLIC LIBRARY Online. Monthly. Second Friday, 3 p.m. Call 589-4611, email [email protected] or visit nashualibrary.org.

Language

The Book of Hope, A Survival Guide for Trying Times, by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams with Gail Hudson

The Book of Hope, A Survival Guide for Trying Times, by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams with Gail Hudson (Celadon, 249 pages)

Jane Goodall was just 23 years old when a renowned paleoanthropologist hired her to study the behavior of chimpanzees in the wild in Tanzania. Goodall had no background in science, not even a college degree.

But she had something that proved even more important: persistence. She was willing to sit for hours patiently and crawl through brush looking for the animals that her boss believed could better explain human evolution. Goodall also had her mother, who accompanied her on the trip and would share a “wee dram” of whiskey with her every night, Goodall writes in her latest venture, The Book of Hope.

Months passed before Goodall had anything to report, but one day she observed a male chimpanzee using a stem of grass to scoop termites out of a mound. This was an exciting development in animal science, since at that time it was believed that only humans used tools. It was also an exciting development for Goodall personally, because she got new funding and began the career that would see her become the world’s most famous naturalist.

Now 87, Goodall is still mostly known for her work with chimpanzees, although these days her primary job is giving talks about environmental issues via Zoom. She is deeply concerned about climate change, extinction, the loss of animal habitat and a host of other connected issues, as is Douglas Abrams, her co-author and the likely reason this promising title disappoints.

Abrams is an entrepreneur and another “New York Times bestselling author” you’ve never heard of. His company, Idea Architects, came up with the idea to do a series of books collaborating with famous people on a cheery topic like hope or joy. Abrams’ first book, called The Book of Joy, Lasting Happiness in a Changing World, was built around the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Goodall, meanwhile, gets the subject of hope all to herself.

It was a good idea, poorly executed. Throughout her career Goodall has been something of an ambassador of hope for the natural world, and she’s written multiple books about her work. She understands what’s known as “eco-grief” — a sense of despair about what’s happening to the planet and its inhabitants. But because of Goodall’s observations of how flora and fauna can recover from devastation, she says there are four reasons that people should be hopeful about the future.

Sure, they are platitudes (cue “the indomitable human spirit” and “the resilience of nature”), but in the right hands this book might have worked. Unfortunately these are the wrong hands, and they’re too many of them. (Who is this “with Gail Hudson” mentioned on the cover and nowhere else?) Generally speaking, the chances a movie will be bad rise in proportion to the number of screenwriters. This is true of books, too.

But I blame Abrams, who employs the laziest form of narration: unspooling conversations in banal “I said, she said” construction while padding paragraphs with unnecessary, fawning detail.

An example: “The morning sun was making Jane’s cheeks glow as we began another day of interviews. Looking at her in her salmon-colored turtleneck and gray, puffy jacket, I realized I never thought of her as being old.”

Get a room, people.

The book is based on a series of conversations that Goodall and Abrams had about hope. They begin by discussing her career and what Abrams calls the science of hope — research on what hope is, and how its presence or absence can inspire or kill us. They also quickly destroy any hope that the book will be compelling by strangely talking about the book within the book.

Actual line: “Okay, we can add a section of Further Reading for those who want to learn more about the research we discuss in the dialogue.”

Goodall is the victim here. When she’s allowed to talk, with no descriptions of what she is wearing or what warm throw she is wrapping around her shoulders by the fireside, she is generally fascinating, as are her stories.

I’d heard before about 2,000-year-old seeds that archaeologists sprouted, but I didn’t know that these were the seeds of date plants collected from the courtyard of the biblical King Herod, nor did I know they grew to mature trees that bore fruit. Goodall herself has eaten one of those dates.

Nor did I know about the Survivor Tree from 9/11, a pear tree that was nearly destroyed when the towers collapsed but was painstakingly nursed back to health, was replanted near Ground Zero, and has since cradled birds’ nests.

These are the sort of stories that Goodall says gives her hope, along with similar stories of animals on the brink of extinction that are coming back with intensive human intervention.

For example, there’s an endangered bird in Europe, the black robin, that naturalists coaxed into laying two eggs, which they took from the nest (with much angst) and placed in another nest to hatch. The hope was that the parents would try again and they did, building another nest and laying two more eggs, which again were removed. Eventually there were six eggs that hatched, and all the fledglings were returned to the mother (with extra food so she wouldn’t exhaust herself trying to feed them.)

She is also inspired by “rewilding” efforts going on in Europe, the intentional return of wolves to national parks in the U.S., and hundreds of other projects that attempt to undo damage to ecosystems by overhunting and overharvesting. And Goodall and Abrams spend a whole chapter drawing hope from the actions of young people.

The book ends with a discussion of Goodall’s hope in life after death. It’s a surprising turn in the conversation born of a question someone asked her once: What’s your next big adventure? Dying, she said, and she wasn’t being morbid. “If there’s something (after death), which I believe, what greater adventure can it be than finding out what it is?”

Abrams may well be a terrific interviewer, and he does extract interesting stories from Goodall, but his prose is uninspired at best, and too often tedious. He did Goodall no favors by injecting himself into what should have been solely her book. C

Book Notes

A debut author who lives in Vermont is getting a lot of buzz on must-read lists for fall.

The novel is The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven (Little, Brown and Co., 336 pages), and the author is Nathaniel Ian Miller, who once wrote for newspapers but now raises beef cattle. Animal-rights activists best stay from the Ned’s Best Beef website, which features pictures of cows with cutlines that say things like “tasted fantastic.”

Let’s hope, at least, he brings that sense of humor to the novel, which is about a Stockholm man who goes to the Arctic seeking adventure and gets more than he bargained for when he is disfigured in an avalanche. “There, with the company of a loyal dog, he builds a hut and lives alone, testing himself against the elements,” according to the publisher. They had me at “the company of a loyal dog,” although I still have not emotionally recovered from the loyal dog in Peter Heller’s The Dog Stars(Vintage, 336 pages).

Another promising new book that will wreck your emotions is One Friday in April, a memoir about suicide by Donald Antrim, who came close to jumping off the roof of his four-story apartment building in 2006. Antrim is a novelist with impressive credentials, including a MacArthur Fellowship and being named one of 20 best novelists under 40 by The New Yorker in 1999. Those accolades could not erase the pain that Antrim battled, which he considers a disease of the body and brain called suicide. The excerpt on Amazon is riveting, whether or not you have intimate knowledge of this disease.

Finally, Mary Roach, queen of the one-word titles (Stiff, Bonk, Gulp, Grunt and Spook, among others) is back with Fuzz (W.W. Norton, 320 pages), subtitled “When nature breaks the law.” Roach is a science writer with a gift for digging up seemingly implausible things, such as the fact that just a few centuries ago animals were actually put on trial for human crimes like trespassing or breaking and entering. (And you thought our legal system had problems now.) It looks like another fun read that will give you plenty to talk about at holiday parties. If there are holiday parties, you know.

Book Events

Author events

• CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE Author presents Comfort Me With Apples. Virtual event hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore. Fri., Oct. 29, 7 p.m. Via Zoom. Registration required. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com.

• MITCH ALBOM Author presents The Stranger in the Lifeboat. Virtual event hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore. Fri., Nov. 5, 7:30 p.m. Via Zoom. Registration required. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com.

Poetry

• “IN MY SHOES” Poetry reading and open mic event. Eight poets who recently completed a four-week poetry class will read their poetry. Community members are invited to bring and read an original or favorite poem that fits with the theme for the open mic portion. Sat., Oct. 30, 1 to 3 p.m. Twiggs Gallery (254 King St., Boscawen). Free. Light refreshments will be served. Visit twiggsgallery.wordpress.com or call 975-0015.

Book Clubs

• BOOKERY Online. Monthly. Third Thursday, 6 p.m. Bookstore based in Manchester. Visit bookerymht.com or call 836-6600.

• GIBSON’S BOOKSTORE Online, via Zoom. Monthly. First Monday, 5:30 p.m. Bookstore based in Concord. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com/gibsons-book-club-2020-2021 or call 224-0562.

• GOFFSTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY 2 High St., Goffstown. Monthly. Third Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. Call 497-2102, email [email protected] or visit goffstownlibrary.com

• NASHUA PUBLIC LIBRARY Online. Monthly. Second Friday, 3 p.m. Call 589-4611, email [email protected] or visit nashualibrary.org.

I Left My Homework in the Hamptons, by Blythe Grossberg

I Left My Homework in the Hamptons, by Blythe Grossberg (Hanover Square Press, 290 pages)

Earlier this year Netflix released a documentary on the college admissions scandal that was dubbed Operation Varsity Blues. If there were to be a prequel, it could be based on I Left My Homework in the Hamptons, a memoir that reveals the lengths to which the wealthy go to ensure that their children do well in high school.

Massachusetts native Blythe Grossberg is a learning specialist who spent nearly 20 years tutoring “the children of the one percent” in New York City, all the while tucking away unflattering anecdotes about her clients and their offspring. It is, in many ways, a story of “poor little rich kids.” Grossberg is sympathetic to the teens, not so much to their parents, some of whom seem to view children as a sort of designer accessory.

Grossberg, who now runs a tutoring company based in Boston, made up names and changed identifying details to create composite characters for the memoir. That seems justified for ethical reasons, if not legal ones, but it does drain the book of some of its power, knowing that Lily, Alex and Trevor, some of the students featured in the book, don’t actually exist, at least not exactly how they are depicted.

That said, maybe that’s a good thing.

Alex, for example, is among the teens portrayed here whose parents play a minimal role in his life. Their job is to make money and hire the tutors, drivers and housekeepers.

For much of the year Alex’s driver picks him up in a black Cadillac Escalade so he can play tennis before and after school. Practice doesn’t end until 7, and then his tutors (plural) await. “He spends far more time with his driver than with his parents, who often don’t come home until long after I’ve tutored Alex in writing,” Grossberg writes.

In addition to Grossberg, the teen has a Yale-educated tutor for math and science, and another tutor, who charges $800 an hour, to prepare him for the SAT. He also has a team of psychiatrists who help with his anxiety.

Although his days are packed with activities, there’s plenty that Alex doesn’t have to do. He doesn’t do homework on his own; that’s saved for tutoring time. His meals are prepared, his clothes washed and put away, his room cleaned, all by others.

Grossberg sees another of her students, Lily, a high school freshman, in between squash lessons and personal training, to which she is driven by the family’s housekeeper. There are few family dinners; in fact, there is no time for dinner at all — Lily eats sushi while she is tutored.

Grossberg works with 16-year-old Ben in the business center of the fancy hotel where he lives. “His parents live in a room nearby with a younger brother, but they are never home.” He eats mostly room service, his favorite a $27 burger on a ciabatta roll. “Bereft of parental supervision, Ben spends his days shuttling between his allergist and therapist and ordering room service. He often goes to school without the proper clothes because his parents forget to go shopping for him.”

While Grossberg at times works to defend the parents as hard-working and well-meaning, they don’t come off well in this book. They complain when she can’t come on the evening they request, or when their children receive Bs. When a grade is not to their liking, it’s either the teacher’s fault (the child is “a bit politically conservative” for this school) or Grossberg’s. Incredibly, some have to be dunned to pay Grossberg’s invoices, sometimes because an accounting firm handles all the family’s expenses.

Grossberg calls the teens “Gatsby’s children” and says they are the spiritual heirs of Fitzgeralds’s hero, who lived in luxury on Long Island. The Great Gatsby, of course, is required reading for most American high school students, and Grossberg’s charges read about Jay Gatsby and his friends with little self-awareness. In fact, they have little awareness of the world outside their world; as do their parents, who are incredulous when Grossberg tells them that she is not summering in the Hamptons. (Does anyone not in the 1 percent use “summer” as a verb?)

Essentially, this is a book not just about tutoring but about the outsourcing of parenting that can occur when enough disposable income is present. One night Grossberg had just gotten home to her family when a student’s mother called and asked if she would speak with her daughter, who was upset about a grade. Grossberg says she could tell from the background noise that the mother was at a restaurant. She called Sophie, who had gotten a B- on a test and was sobbing. She ranted for a while and then announced she had to go study for another test. “I realized she just needed to talk and her mother outsourced it to me,” Grossberg writes.

The same mother later appears in the book when her husband is under investigation for financial wrongdoing and is pictured on the front page of The New York Times. On Grossberg’s next visit, she worries about what to say, but needn’t have: The mother launches into a discussion about her unhappiness with the B+ her daughter has just received.

And on it goes, a car accident in book form that you can’t stop ogling even though you know this is all none of your business, not what’s going on in these children’s lives, nor in their parents’, nor in Grossberg’s. And here’s the thing: While Grossberg is sternly opposed to the lives that Gatsby’s children are leading and makes clear that neglect is one of the parents’ sins, she is collecting all these anecdotes by working long hours after her own teaching job, leaving her young son in the care of babysitters for six days a week. The circumstances are much different, and Grossberg repeatedly compares her impoverished lifestyle, replete with holes in her shoes, with those of her clients. And yet, on some level, both the rich and the (relatively) poor commit the same parenting sin.

Grossberg, the daughter of lawyers and married to an Ivy-League educated magazine editor, makes clear that she needs the money she earns tutoring, but she also lives in one of the most expensive cities in the U.S. I found myself wondering why the couple didn’t just move somewhere cheaper, and devote more time to her son.

Ultimately she does move, back to Massachusetts, although by then her son is a teenager. She’s now president of a tutoring company that, from the looks of the website, still caters to the 1 percent. The poor we will always have with us, Jesus of Nazareth said, to which we can add, and they’ll do their homework by themselves. The rich will have help, and it makes for entertaining reading. As for the writing, people probably won’t hire Grossberg based on this book. B-

Book Notes

With William Shatner having formally gone to space the dawn of space tourism is officially here, and the publishing industry was ready for launch.

The most promising read for the general public is Christian Davenport’s The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos (PublicAffairs, 320 pages), but it’s three years old, making it practically ancient history in a rapidly changing field. Similarly, Rocket Billionaires: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and the New Space Raceby Tim Fernholz (Mariner, 304 pages) was published in 2018.

More recently, there are two choices. Liftoff by Eric Berger (William Morrow, 288 pages) is a narrower look at Musk and “the desperate early days that launched SpaceX.” There’s also Test Gods by Nicholas Schmidle (Henry Holt & Co., 352 pages) which looks at the third major player in space tourism, Richard Branson and his Virgin Galactic.

Shatner, meanwhile, might want to update his autobiographyUp Till Now (Thomas Dunne Books, 358 pages). From his remarks after his return to Earth, it sounds like the flight he made was life-changing, and the memoir was published in 2008. But even more remarkable than going into space at age 90 is the number of books Shatner has written, to include science fiction, multiple memoirs and even a book about horses, published in 2017, The Spirit of the Horse (Thomas Dunne Books, 304 pages). By some accounts Shatner has published 22 books even while continuing to work as an actor, a remarkable second act. It’s a safe bet that a 23rd is already in the works.

Meanwhile humorist David Sedaris has published Round 2 of his diaries. A Carnival of Snackery (Little, Brown and Co., 576 pages) spans the years from 2003 to 2020 and is a followup to 2017’s Theft By Finding, which covered 1977 to 2002. Sedaris already written about many of the events recounted here, but this promises to be an even more unvarnished look, the original material, so to speak

Book Events

Author events

• WENDY GORTON Author presents 50 Hikes with Kids: New England. Virtual event hosted by The Toadstool Bookshops of Peterborough, Nashua and Keene. Via Zoom. Sun., Oct. 24, 2 p.m. Visit toadbooks.com.

• RAVI SHANKAR Author presents Correctional. Virtual event hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord. Wed., Oct. 27, 7 p.m. Via Zoom. Registration required. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.

• CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE Author presents Comfort Me With Apples. Virtual event hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord. Fri., Oct. 29, 7 p.m. Via Zoom. Registration required. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.

Poetry

• DOWN CELLAR POETRY SALON Poetry event series presented by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. Monthly. First Sunday. Visit poetrysocietynh.wordpress.com.

• SLAM FREE OR DIE Series of open mic nights for poets and spoken-word artists. Stark Tavern, 500 N. Commercial St., Manchester. Weekly. Thursday, doors open and sign-ups beginning at 7 p.m., open mic at 8 p.m. The series also features several poetry slams every month. Events are open to all ages. Cover charge of $3 to $5 at the door, which can be paid with cash or by Venmo. Visit facebook.com/slamfreeordie, e-mail [email protected] or call 858-3286.

Book Clubs

• BOOKERY Online. Monthly. Third Thursday, 6 p.m. Bookstore based in Manchester. Visit bookerymht.com or call 836-6600.

• GIBSON’S BOOKSTORE Online, via Zoom. Monthly. First Monday, 5:30 p.m. Bookstore based in Concord. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com/gibsons-book-club-2020-2021 or call 224-0562.

• GOFFSTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY 2 High St., Goffstown. Monthly. Third Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. Call 497-2102, email [email protected] or visit goffstownlibrary.com

• NASHUA PUBLIC LIBRARY Online. Monthly. Second Friday, 3 p.m. Call 589-4611, email [email protected] or visit nashualibrary.org.

Author: Jennifer Graham

Once Upon a Wardrobe, by Patti Callahan

Pastoral Song, by James Rebanks

Truffle Hound, by Rowan Jacobsen

Bewilderment, by Richard Powers

The Book of Hope, A Survival Guide for Trying Times, by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams with Gail Hudson

I Left My Homework in the Hamptons, by Blythe Grossberg

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